Chapter 255 Zhu Guofan, the lonely city of Hangzhou
Hangzhou City.
Ever since the prefect Zhu Guofan announced that the entire city would implement wartime food supply and borrowed troops from Admiral Tian Xiong to forcibly confiscate food from people's homes, the atmosphere in Hangzhou became more solemn day by day.
The food in the city was taken away by force, and then each soldier could get one liter of rice per day, and the common people could get one liter of rice per family. The officials were given two liters of rice per day.
As a large southeastern city with a large population, Hangzhou needs 300,000 shi of rice per month, and normally consumes 10,000 shi of rice a day.
Not counting other non-staple foods such as meat, eggs and vegetables.
How big is Hangzhou? It’s 40 miles around!
The population inside and outside the city is hundreds of thousands, and can reach more than a million people. Even if only Hangzhou City is besieged now, the number of military and civilian craftsmen in the city is still hundreds of thousands.
To be precise, the city's population in normal times is no less than four to five million, which is not much different from the cities in Susong, Jiangning, and Yangzhou.
Such a large city is already a big industrial and commercial city with abundant capital. The vast majority of the city's population is engaged in industrial, commercial and manufacturing industries, which consumes huge amounts of food and non-staple food.
Rice is consumed 3.6 million koku a year.
However, Hangzhou has always hoarded rice and other grains in suburban towns such as Qitang Town, Linping Town, Beixinguan Town, Liuzhou City, etc. outside the city, not to mention the necessary meat and vegetables, and basically
They have to be brought in from outside the city every day.
Hangzhou has been sealed off for more than half a month, and meat and vegetables have been cut off for a long time. The few grains stored in the homes of the people in the city and the grain stores in the grain shops, even if the supply is limited, cannot last long.
The price of rice on the black market has reached a high price of ten taels of silver and one stone, and it is still rising. Even the sorghum, sweet potatoes and even bran used to feed livestock are more expensive than the rice before.
Those officials wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, claiming that they were supplying limited amounts of grain to the people. But in the end, they first mixed grains into the grains, then added bran into the grains, and finally mixed in sand and mud. Anyway, every time they passed a layer of hands, someone would go there.
Get some stuff from the store, skimp on some food and bring it out, then get it to the black market and resell it at a high price.
Officials deprive the people, and officers deprive the soldiers.
As a result, the food everyone received every day was only enough to make some gruel to survive. Nowadays, mice in the city can be sold for a hundred cents each.
The horses, mules, cats and dogs have all been eaten, and the rats and sparrows have become rare commodities.
Everything that can be eaten has now become a good thing in the eyes of the people of Hangzhou. Everyone is trapped in this big city, waiting to die every day.
If West Lake hadn't been outside Hangzhou at this time, they would have probably let them scoop out the water and catch all the fish.
Hundreds of thousands of people with hungry eyes can't help but swallow their saliva now. It is said that some people have begun to sell rice meat on the black market. The so-called rice meat is actually human flesh.
The number of beggars in Hangzhou has been decreasing rapidly. They have been kidnapped by some people and killed for eating or selling their meat.
Less than a month after the siege, Hangzhou actually started cannibalism.
After all, the Qing army never thought that Hangzhou would be besieged. They were unprepared and unprepared for all this. Food was still stored in the suburbs of the city as usual. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the city. Food, non-staple food, meat, vegetables, etc. were all supplied from outside.
"grown ups,"
The Hangzhou official raised a box in front of the prefect Zhu Guofan and said, "This is your portion."
Zhu Guofan opened the box and saw a dazzling golden light.
"This is eight hundred taels of gold."
The official smiled and told Zhu Guofan that he had specially changed it to gold and cast these eighty large yellow croakers. "Gold is easy to hide and carry, and it is more valuable."
"Silver takes up more space."
Eight hundred taels of gold can be worth twelve thousand taels of silver according to the current price, and fifty taels of silver ingot are worth two hundred and forty ingots.
But now one tael of gold in Hangzhou cannot be exchanged for one stone of grain, and grain prices on the black market are rising every day.
"Thank you." Zhu Guofan accepted with a smile.
"It's all a matter of my humble position. The city has been besieged for a long time, and the price of food on the black market has been getting higher and higher." Although I took the opportunity to make money from the war, no reinforcements came, and the officials in the city such as Tuiguan became more and more panicked.
It's a pretty good job to make money. While others eat multigrain porridge mixed with sand and soil every day, they can still have white grain rice and even eat meat, including Jinhua ham and other dry goods, which are quite a lot.
There are even ways to get some freshly slaughtered meat from horses and mules.
But I'm also afraid that I have a life to make money but not a life to spend. If this city is destroyed, no matter how much money I make, my work will be in vain.
"Sir, I wonder when reinforcements will arrive?"
Zhu Guofan sighed.
Recommender Xu An couldn't help but panicked, "What's wrong? But there is new news?"
"Reinforcements probably won't come."
"How is it possible? The imperial court can't ignore Hangzhou. Governor Zhang, Governor Xiao and the others are going to bring in reinforcements. They will definitely arrive soon."
Zhu Guofan just said, "If what you said is true, then the reinforcements have almost arrived, but what is the reality? Hangzhou has been besieged for so many days, let alone reinforcements, we haven't even seen a bird from Jiangning, right?"
"Jiangning is said to be far away, but Huzhou, Jiaxing and even Songjiang are not far away. Why haven't we seen a single soldier?"
"I heard the news that Governor Zhang, Governor Xiao and his party were ambushed in Huzhou. I heard that the entire army was wiped out. Now the entire Huzhou and Jiaxing have been conquered and occupied by the Ming army, and we are isolated."
"Ah?" the promoter trembled.
"The most terrible thing is not just that, Su Song is not at peace either. I heard that the Ming Navy is now raiding various places. Li Chengdong of Jiading lost several cities in a row, and Tu Guobao, the governor of Jiangning, even lost Wujiang City under his nose."
"Even Jiangning is not peaceful."
"One more thing, I heard that Hong Annuo was reprimanded by the imperial court for not doing enough to pacify Jiangnan and was transferred to Huguang as a manager. I heard that the troubles in Huguang are getting worse now. Jingzhou, Wuchang, and Xiangyang are all besieged and may be captured at any time.
, then we can go straight down the river to Jiangning."
Xu An's face turned pale in shock. Although he was a little worried during this period, he still felt that the court could not ignore Hangzhou and reinforcements would arrive soon, so he was busy embezzling and making money without even thinking too much about it.
"How do you know this information?"
Zhu Guofan pointed out with his finger, "The Ming army outside came every day to recruit people and persuade them to surrender, and they shot many arrows every day to bring in the news. None of this information was secret. Although Tian Junmen did not allow it to be spread to outsiders, how could I not know about it.
"
"Sir, what Ming Jun said cannot be trusted. He must have lied to us."
Zhu Guofan let out another long sigh, which made Xu Anxin tremble.
"We know that we are taking advantage of the opportunity to sell grain on the black market in the city, but you don't understand how to raise the bid to defend the city? Someone has already secretly smuggled it out of the city."
"ah?"
"There's nothing surprising. It's a normal thing. They were guarding the city and taking advantage of others' unpreparedness, they used ropes and baskets to secretly trade with the Ming army below the city."
"Is this okay?"
"What's wrong? Soldiers are also human beings. The Qing troops in the city are human beings, and the Ming troops outside the city are human beings. Who doesn't like money?"
"The two red cannons that were damaged in the last artillery battle were pushed down the city and sold to the Ming army by a guerrilla who raised the bid. The damaged red cannon was exchanged for one thousand kilograms of rice."
